About Dan Feder

Biography:

I was a member of the Narco News team in various capacities, from webmaster to Editor-in-Chief, from 2002-2008. Since 2006 I have also been a member of the International Peace Observatory, which performs human rights accompaniment for Colombian campesino organizations in conflict zones. I am now living in Boston and working as a website developer for DigitalAid, Inc.

BOGOTA: Freddy Muñoz, correspondent in Colombia for the Venezuela-based cable news station Telesur, was detained last night at the Bogotá international airport as he returned from a trip to Caracas. He is now being held at the headquarters of the Administrative Department for Security (DAS, Colombias secret narco-police).

The Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) reports that two civilians died in confrontations today with the Federal Preventive Police: Social Security Institute worker Roberto López Hernández and nurse and APPO safety commission member Jorge Alberto Beltrán.

For just over an hour the Federal Preventive Police (PFP) have been marching on Oaxaca City. Police are advancing with water cannon tanks and riot shields. They have cleared several barricades but others are holding their ground. Whether or not police are armed is unclear, but there have been several reports on the movement station Radio APPO of PFP officers beating protesters. The station also reports that snipers are flying low over the city in three helicopters. Leaders continue exhorting the people to resist but to abstain from any violence against the police.

Narco News has received this call to protest the repression in Oaxaca from the Industrial Workers of the World  NYC.

Defend the popular uprising in Oaxaca! Picket the Mexican Consulate in New York!

"And when we have our march, you need to be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together." - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

-Join us from 4pm-6pm on Tuesday, October 10 in front of the Mexican Consulate, which is located at 27 East 39th Street (between Madison and Park), for a picket to defend the Oaxacan uprising from government attacks!-

OAXACA: A Mexican Navy helicpter again flew over both the outskirts and center of the state capital, provoking uneasiness among the members of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO in its Spanish initials) and teachers who have occupied parts of the city since May.

BOGOTÁ: With 90.1% of the votes counted in the Colombian presidential election, president Álvaro Uribe Velez, who last year succeeded in changing the Colombian constitution to allow him to be the first president ever to run for reelection, is clearly the winner with 62.17 of the vote. But in an historic turn of events for the Colombian left, Alternative Democratic Pole candidate Carlos Gaviria has received, so far, 22.10 percent.

A few moments ago we were watching and listening to the media and the way that they are handling the information about what is going on. We listened to the news anchors on TV Azteca imploring for order, for the army to come in and establish order and end what was happening there. We also heard the outrage of TV viewers who sent in letters saying that the anchors were idiots for asking the armed forces to step in.

We have just received word that Narco News Other Journalism correspondents James Daria and Dul Santamaría and their colleagues Moisés Altamirano Bustos, Hasavias López Cortés, Jessica Joseph Daria, Hillary Chase Lowenbere and Andrew William Saltzman have been released from police custody in Oaxaca City. The group had been arrested on May 1, in an illegal attack by the Oaxacan authorities on press freedom and the Other Campaign.

According to James Daria, the group was set free due to lack of evidence against them and because we had a lot of support and solidarity.

More information on the case of our, and your, persecuted journalists will be published soon in Narco News. Thanks goes out to all our readers and allies who have offered their help and support during these last two days.